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Five ways Sir Dave Brailsford has revolutionised leadership

Named after the cartoon character ‘Secret Squirrel’, Brailsford assembled experts from sport, industry, science and the military to share secrets and gain the edge in their respective fields.

2. Mr.1%

Brailsford and his team analyses everything from fitness to hygiene to the paint on the bikes. He says “If you broke down everything that came from a cycling performance and you improved everything by 1% when you brought that altogether you would have a significant improvement in performance.”

3. It’s not how you start it’s how you finish

“One of the cornerstones of are our approach is that we are very outcome focused and unless we truly understand the outcome before we get going we won’t start. You’ll find people who will start on a project or start on a strategy without really understanding the exact detail of what success looks like.“

4. He wants to apply sporting success to everyday life

Last year, he told the Harvard Business Review, “I met Britain’s cabinet secretary. We discussed whether marginal gains could be applied to improve outcomes for our national health service. I am personally am more interested in how it can help public services.”

5. The Triangle of Change

He introduced this strategy to improve performance and explains it as follows….

Suffering & Reward: You have to be suffering enough or the reward has to be great enough to engage with change, and if either one of those are not in place, then you will more than likely carry on business as usual and not change your behaviour.

Psychologically Minded: You have to be psychologically minded. You must think you can change. Even in the greatest of adversity, if you don’t think there is an opportunity to change, then the likelihood is that you won’t change.

Commitment:You have to be committed to be better. Without commitment, we are all stuck and going nowhere.